


Yours (Truly)

by inlovewithnight



Category: Pop Music RPF
Genre: Coming Out, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-29
Updated: 2014-03-29
Packaged: 2018-01-17 11:31:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1386037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Falling in and out of love always happens to Taylor the same way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yours (Truly)

She’s been sleeping with El for a few months now, long enough to know her quirks and what makes her yelp, and not long enough to be tired of anything. El is still new and delicious.

“And juicy,” Taylor says, licking a line up the inside of El’s thigh. “All ripe.”

El laughs, deep and throaty. Her voice bubbles up in a way that makes Taylor’s pulse itch under her skin. “Dirty old woman.”

“Older than you isn’t _old_.” Taylor presses her thumb against El’s hip, watching the skin blanch under the pressure. “Because you’re a baby.”

“I am not.”

Taylor _was_ El, once. The child-queen of her personal scene. She remembers everything.

“Do you want to _be_ me?” she asks, resting her chin on El’s thigh and looking up the length of her body at her. El’s breasts are in the way, soft and lined with blue veins. She’s as pale as a vampire. “Or, like, destroy me and take my place?”

She hears how crazy that sounds as soon as she says it. “Never mind. Don’t answer that.”

El laughs again, but it’s higher, more laced with nerves. Taylor’s making things weird again. “Where did that come from?”

“There’s a slight chance I’m crazy.” Taylor sits up and brushes her hair back off her face. “Ask anybody I’ve ever dated before, you know?”

El blinks a few times, then shrugs and lies back against the pillows. “As long as I get a song about it. Now kiss me, the driver’s coming back in an hour and I need to be showered and dressed by then.”

**

Being with Selena was about perfect lipstick and perfect nails and leaning into each other at awards shows, satin sliding against chiffon, deep kisses and delicate little licks.

El is giggly kisses and long fingers, blurred selfies with no makeup, pinching Taylor’s ass in the changing room at some Melrose boutique. El wants to play, Selena wanted to fuck.

Selena went running back to Justin anyway. Maybe it isn’t fair for Taylor to judge, but she does anyway. She would never go _back_ to them, after they were gone. That gives all the power away.

It isn’t any different with girls, not to her. If El leaves, it’s over. It will be a shame; she’s enjoying the playing, even if she misses the unvarnished, unsubtle fucking, too.

Pop star-on-pop star romance is a product with a short shelf life. Taylor understands this better than most. El claims she gets it, too, but she doesn’t, yet. Taylor knows the signs. The girl’s still starry-eyed.

Taylor remembers feeling like that. She started out that young, too. That human. She might’ve even had the same hair, except hers was crimped and backcombed, not naturally wild.

Now she’s a brand, and she has to think like a brand. Act like a brand. Being in love has to fit into the time left over for it, and it always, always breaks before it has a chance to fade.

Taylor isn’t sure what she wants. This is how it always goes.

**

“I’m not really a country singer anymore,” she says, halfway through dinner, when the wine is warm and comfortable in her stomach. “But it’s my first home, you know? It’s where I learned to write. And there are, like. Stock phrases. They get used over and over.”

El cocks her head. “So… clichés. They’re boring.”

“No, no, it’s more like… yeah, it’s a reuse, but it’s sort of an homage to the genre’s past. Where it came from. I mean, sometimes. Sometimes it’s just a cliché.”

“Give me an example?”

Taylor tilts her head back and thinks. “Girl, you look good in them blue jeans. Or just ‘them blue jeans.’ It’s a… a coded phrase, I guess. It carries a lot of weight.”

El shakes her head. “I don’t get it.”

Taylor shrugs and looks down into her wine. “I guess you have to grow up with it.”

She knows she’ll put it in the song anyway. A portion of her fanbase will see what she did there. Nobody’s ever given her credit for knowing how to work a niche, but nobody’s ever really paid attention, either.

She can’t believe she’s already looking ahead to when it’s over. 

**

“You’re a control freak,” El sing-songs, while Taylor stands in front of her closet. “It’s just the beach.”

Taylor shakes her head. “Control freaks sell records.”

El twirls a strand of hair around her finger. “Wear what you wore last night. I liked it.”

“I was at an event last night,” Taylor reminds her. “It took two stylists and three hours to do that.”

El laughs. “It sold me, though. Come on.”

Taylor looks at her for a moment. “What if instead of going to the beach, we stayed here?”

“Are you hitting on me or do you not want to be seen with me?”

Taylor reaches out and flicks the end of El’s curls. “Hitting on you.”

“Oh, good. I was worried for a minute.” El reaches out, cupping Taylor’s face in her hands and kissing her softly. They linger there for a minute, warm and good, and Taylor never wants anything else.

“But I still want to go out,” El says, stepping back. “So put on some jeans and let’s go.”

They post pictures from the beach. Taylor wonders what everyone sees. No one can ever see her heart, and that’s a blessing. She relies on that to keep herself sane.

But sometimes she wonders.

**

Relationships are business decisions. She needs to sit down with her publicist before she does anything risky.

Anita twirls a pen in slow circles across her desk. “If you’re going to be a lesbian, Tay, you’ve got to do it the same way you were a straight girl.”

Taylor crosses her legs at the ankles, rubbing her shoes together so the buckle of one catches on the leather of the other. “Meaning what, exactly?”

Anita points the pen at her and says, “Break up with her and write an album about how you never needed her ass anyway.”

That isn’t what she wanted to hear.

“Bisexual is a thing,” she says.

Anita sighs. “Not for you, honey.”

She’s probably going to have to fire Anita.

**

On the other hand, Anita might very well be right. The more she thinks about it, the more she… thinks about it.

El is off on tour, so she has even _more_ time to think about it. She goes to dance class, she shops, she authorizes merchandise, and she _thinks_ about it.

It merges with all of her other mantras and pep talks, every motivational speech she’s heard since she was little.

_If you’re going to be a lesbian, Tay, be the best lesbian you can be._

**

The first song she writes about it is called “Yours,” and she knows as soon as she starts it that that’s it, that’s her next album title track, that’s the lead single, that’s the tour-shaper.

It flows from there, the songs coming together as fast as any of her albums. Songs about missing Selena, songs that are kiss-offs to Selena. Confused, tentative songs about El. Less-confused, hungry songs about El.

If Beyonce can have a song about riding Jay-Z’s surfboard, Taylor can have one about sinking her teeth and her fingers into El. It probably won’t get a video, though.

**

Maybe she should write a song about Beyonce, too.

**

Anita’s plan is to leak the album to Rolling Stone, do a cover story, then follow up with pieces for celebrity and queer magazines to spin different aspects of coming out as a celebrity in 2014.

Taylor wants to just put the album out and then take a cover story with the highest bidder, once everyone catches on. Give it a few days of not commenting and letting everyone bluster, then swoop in. Maybe with some scolding about prying culture, or smugness about knowing how to beat them at their own game.

“That won’t work,” Anita says. “Don’t piss them off, you know that. And anyway, your band, the producers, the janitor at the studio, someone will leak it ages before the album drops.”

“I pay them enough not to.” Taylor looks at her phone, lit up with a notification that El sent her another picture from England. Another picture of her laughing and leaning on some other girl, just like the last three.

“Taylor,” Anita says. “Taylor. We need to decide what we’re doing.”

Taylor turns her phone off without replying to El. She’ll deal with that later. “We’re doing what I want to do. Why is that even a question?”

**

El breaks up with her on _Facetime_. Three days before the album drop. From _New Zealand_.

“I can’t believe you’re not even doing this in person,” Taylor says, staring at the screen. “I can’t believe you didn’t fly out here if you’re going to break up with me.”

“It’s a very long flight.” El barely even looks apologetic. And her eyeliner is uneven. “Look, I’m sorry, but it’s just too much. The distance.”

“We’re _both_ on tour all the time.”

“Well…” El frowns at her fingernails, then at the camera. “You’re clingy, too. I’m sorry! But you are. And it’s not working for me.”

Taylor can’t think of anything to say. “Wow,” she sputters finally. “Wow.”

“Look, let’s not…” El exhales sharply. “Fine, I’m just going to say it. Don’t _name_ me, okay? Please?”

Taylor’s eyes narrow. It must look scary, from the way El flinches back from the screen.

“Be better than that, Tay, please?” She glances over her shoulder. “Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll email you.”

Taylor shuts down her iPad and flops back on the couch. This _always_ happens.

At least she’ll have press and tour to keep her busy. The innocuous pre-album single has made its way around, and she’s debuting “Yours” on Late Night tomorrow.

A few tears on the chorus will look good under the lights.

**

“Yours” explodes out of the gate. She gets her Rolling Stone cover, then People and Out. And she fires Anita.

She is, still and always, the queen. She knows what she’s doing. Someday the rest of them will get that.

**

Maybe she should call Kristen Stewart.


End file.
